New Areas Named For Fibre Broadband Rollout

Rural areas will be the focus of the latest expansion of superfast broadband across Scotland.

Up to 145,000 homes in areas such as Braemar in Aberdeenshire, Portpatrick in Dumfries and Galloway and Voe in the Shetland Islands will have better online connections as high-speed fibre cables are installed over the summer.

The £410 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme started last year and so far more than 3,400 km of fibre cable has been laid across the country.

A total of 200 communities in Aberdeenshire, Angus, Ayrshire, Argyll and Bute and the Highlands will benefit from the latest rollout, programme directors said.

Engineers will rearrange the existing networks and lay cable to reroute lines through new road-side cabinets. Once work is complete in autumn, those with access to the internet will be able to access download speeds of up to 80 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20 Mbps.

Programme director Sara Budge said: It is great to be celebrating the first year of deployment of the £410 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme, while announcing that more exchanges will be included, with areas such as Portpatrick in the south of Scotland and as far north as Voe in the Shetland Islands being able to connect to fibre broadband for the first time.

The project is developing a high-speed fibre network which is changing the face of broadband. By reaching out to those who would not have been covered through the commercial market - in towns and into some of our most rural areas - we are ensuring that the connections which are made will bring many benefits to the Scottish people at home and in business.''

Brendan Dick, director of BT Scotland, said: The rollout of fibre broadband across Scotland is one of the biggest and most complex civil engineering projects taking place in the UK today and we're proud to be at the heart of it.

It's great to be announcing so many new locations this week as we celebrate our first, full year of deployment.

In any project on this scale plans can change as engineering work progresses, for a variety of reasons. It's important people understand that our plans aren't set in stone but give the best possible forward view of where we expect to go next with the rollout.''